There are two problems as I see it, hosting providers that show a lack of care and server owners/admins that act out of their own personal interest.
imho rented Public hive servers should go because the evidence that I've seen is people cannot be universally trusted. I would also say that the game would benefit from allowing players to only change their character names when a new character is started.
That in itself is not enough though because you also now have the user experience of persistence and vehicles. So I would say all servers need to state their policy on persistence wipes and any server due to be taken offline permanently or for an extended period needs to warn players a few days in advance. Its not ok for players who have spent significant time on storing items or preparing vehicles to have that suddenly taken away through the actions of an admin or provider. Yes DayZ is in alpha, yes bugs etc are expected but this is preventable by applying simple good practice. BIS should take control of persistence wipes on Public hive servers imho, providers need to inform players (via message of the day) a little notice before removing a service.
Whilst you are considering all of this BIS could update the server rules for Public hive to address:
- Servers who change their name on a daily basis
- Yoyo servers that come and go offline at someone's beck and call
- Persistence wipes without any notice or stating their policy
- Servers going permanently offline without any notice
- Server naming violations join=kick, impersonating an official server etc
